goodbye song
by Ju5t An0th3r H3d63h06
Summary: because they are not just Hugh and just Rosa, they are hugh&rosa, inseparable—until the day they aren't. au, sequel, oneshot.


**A/N: Yay for the flu, it broke my sequelshipping writer's block. The downside: muscle aches, random gut pain, coughing uncontrollably, and feeling like my ears/nose/face is stuffed with cotton. Bleh.**

**Dedicated to Luxray-chan and Squirtle-chan because you make me get well cards and feed me oranges. Te quiero mucho, guys! Also dedicated to SumRandomPerson12 for being bon awesome and inspiring me to write more. :)**

**disclaimer: the word disclaimer should do it. no? ok fine i don't own pokemon. happy?**

* * *

立ち止まる時間が  
動き出そうとしている  
忘れたくないことばかり

明日の今頃には  
わたしはきっと泣いている  
あなたを想っているんだろう

translation:  
the paused time  
is about to move  
but I don't wish to forget

about this time tomorrow,  
i may be crying,  
probably thinking about you

~hikaru utada, first love

* * *

goodbye song

* * *

She moves to Aspertia when she's six and immediately wishes she was back in Lilycove where everything was less _huge&loud&scary._ Her mom gets a job at the Pokémon Center, and suddenly she is always at the house of a strange spiky-haired boy. They play go fish_ (no, I don't have a sharpedo) _and hide and seek _(one two, four, ten THAT'S NOT HOW TO COUNT YOU CHEATER)_ until her mother comes to pick her up, and everything is slightly less _huge&loud&scary_ because now she has a (maybe)friend.

* * *

She goes to junior Trainer School at the age of seven and stands petrified near the coatrack until she sees him waving from a desk with four chairs. She walks over and he's talking before she sits down in the last plastic chair _(this is nate _hey you came from hoenn that's awesome_ and nancy who is really hyper _HI NEW GIRL_ and oh yeah, are you still coming over after school?)_ She goes to his house even on the days when her mom is not on call as a Pokémon Center nurse, and they do their homework together over Oreos and milk. She learns his favorite color (red) and the name of his baby sister (Haru) and what he wants to be when he grows up (the greatest Pokémon Trainer ever), and he learns her favorite Pokémon type (grass) and how many stufties she has (twenty-six) and what she wants to be when she grows up (a famous actor at Pokéstar Studios) and they move from (maybe)friends to (Definitely) Friends.

* * *

She plays with him at recess and says with her best eight year old death glare I DON'T CARE HE'S MY BEST FRIEND to the girls who tease her about getting cooties. He teaches her his version of tag _(okay I'm zekrom and you're reshiram and a pokémon trainer is trying to get you run!)_ and lets her join kickball and races with Nate and the other guys and sometimes Nancy because her hyperactivity makes her really fast _(HA TOLD YOU WE CAN BEAT YOU IN A RACE RIGHT ROSA) _and she decides she doesn't really care about the girls in her class, because the best game they know is Strawberry-shortcake-cherry-on-top.

* * *

The summer she turns nine is also the summer he teaches her how to ride a bike. They practice on the sidewalks of Aspertia City, with him running next to her to steady her if she wobbles, and she quickly learns _not_ to mow down innocent passersby _(watch where you're __going,__ kid.)_ He rescues his (now hers) bike from someone's rosebush and runs inside for the first aid kit and lets her cry onto his shoulder because she fell, and she sniffles and sits on the front steps of his house with him as he clumsily puts bandaids on all her scratches _(you don't have to try again, we can stop—no I'm going to get the hang of this.)_ And she does, and she waves to Hugh as she bikes down the street on her own (before promptly crashing again, but that's okay because she did it, she was biking because he helped her.)

* * *

When they're ten, they move up to official actual Trainer School and start talking Pokéballs and journeys (but not too much because that would make them not _hugh&rosa_, just _Hugh_-space-_Rosa _on separate journeys and neither of them are quite sure how they feel about that.) They start walking to Floccesy Town after school, where she spends hours reading about type matchups and the esteemed Elite Four next to him on the beanbag chairs at Floccesy Library. They watch the Driftveil and World Tournaments every Saturday night, and sometimes if he's really bored _(or if she does that thing where her eyes get all big and teary)_ he'll watch the Grand Festival matches from Lilycove City with her (where she used to live and still sometimes misses, but then she sees Hugh and that feeling disappears mostly) or even _(shh!)_ a Pokéstar Studios movie.

* * *

When she is eleven, her world comes crashing down.

* * *

(Wh-who are you people?!)

(We're Team Plasma, and we exist to liberate Pokémon.)

* * *

Everything happens too fast after that. Purrloin claws one of the Team Plasmas and he yells and drops his Pokéball on the ground. One of them catches her in a too-tight grip and she bites on his glove. It tastes gross, like some type of chemical. Hugh's little sister is running, yelling for help from someone (one of them tries to grab her-she avoids them-_she's __clear__ and into Aspertia_) She kicks Plasma-who's-trying-to-steal-Purrloin right where it hurts and leaps out of the way as he falls to the ground in pain, whirling around crazily _(where is Hugh?)_ And then suddenly he comes out of nowhere and punches clawed-by-Purrloin-Plasma in the stomach which makes him crumple into the tall grass. Nerf-gun-Plasma snarls at them—

* * *

_(—that's not a Nerf gun,)_ she realizes, and a clear, needle-sharp dart comes flying out.

* * *

_(NO!)_

* * *

Hugh wrenches free of clawed-by-Purrloin-Plasma and shields her, and she stares uncomprehendingly until the tranquilizer dart's deadly slow-motion arc comes to a halt in the collar of her best friend's red-and-white windbreaker.

* * *

The amount of tranquilizer in the dart was meant for a Pokémon (_but he's not a pokémon,_)she cries as she runs after the ambulance.

* * *

We're not sure if we can save him (_you have to,_) she whispers, tugging at the doctor's coat.

* * *

It's going to be a while (_don't care I'm staying,_) she tells the doctor, and she doesn't even fall asleep.

* * *

You have to go home if you're not family (_he's my cousin,_) she lies, and neither set of parents argues.

* * *

He's in a coma _(what's a coma?) _she asks, and then _(what do you mean he can't wake up? he's asleep, that's all, you just have to wake him up like this) _Rosa where are you going _(hugh) _Rosa _(yo) (wake up qwilfish head)_ Rosa stop please_ (hey! i know you can hear me, you faker) _He can't hear you, Rosa _(yes he can,) _she insists, _(you just have to try harder)_

_(HUGH WAKE UP)_ she yells in his ear, and her best friend doesn't move

he's not breathing

* * *

_(no no nonono NO-)_

* * *

She turns twelve in the hospital.

The same year, she watches her best friend die.

* * *

The day before she turns thirteen, his mother gives her his jacket. It's much too big for her because it was too big even on him, but she doesn't care. She puts it on emotionlessly (actually, she's beginning to see the appeal of doing everything a bit emotionlessly, because the pain of losing her other half fades to a dull ache if she doesn't try) and says thank you _(except it's not thank you, not really, because she would rather have Hugh here but that's not going to happen now is it) _and trudges back into her room and tries to forget that she is turning another year older without _him._

* * *

because she is JustRosa now, not _hugh&rosa_, and there is no one by her side (not even nate&nancy, because even though they are still her friends they are _nate&nancy_ not _nate&nancy&rosa_, but that's okay she's fine _no really you don't have to leave_ and that's how she loses the last two people who actually talk to her, by crying while playing a stupid game of cards)

* * *

She skips a few years (how was she supposed to know, everything is monochromatic for her now, labeled in lovely shades of _black&white_) and suddenly a trainer named Touko has crushed Team Plasma and she is sixteen and going on a Pokémon journey, and she picks Snivy from Bianca (bianca who is _touya&bianca_ because she sees the blush on the older girl's face when she cuts the capturing lesson short for a phone call) and takes his Tepig with her (_just on a whim,_ she says, but the fire pig pokémon understands why.)

* * *

When she is sixteen and a half, Neo Team Plasma appears, and she isn't numb anymore.

* * *

She is _about to unleash her rage mad._

* * *

She doesn't give a shit _(gasp, rosa is cursing? yes, she is, that innocent little girl is long gone) _about the Plasma Frigate or about the many grunts on it. She learned long ago that the "grunts" she and Hugh and Haru faced that day were actually the Shadow Triad _(the day where he died,_ she whispers, and for a second her hearts shatters and she stumbles, but then she pulls his jacket tighter around her shoulders and tells herself to _stop _and _focus_ and_ think._) because she is out to avenge the murder of her best friend.

Their plan is simple in the fact that it's so terrifying. Capture Kyurem, legendary dragon of ice, and control its mind to call Zekrom to it. Fuse them together and freeze Unova underneath an unyielding Glaciate, all while terrifying the general civilian population. Bonus, get rid of _n&touko_ because _(Ghetsis) _seems to hate them so much. But Ghetsis isn't the one calling the shots, it's Colress and he doesn't seem to mind having an innocent little girl sneaking onto his ship.

* * *

Until the_ innocent little girl_ starts destroying things.

* * *

"The damage shields, the cloaking devices, the main engine. You defied all the rules of physics in the space of a few seconds. Tell me, how _did_ you do it?"

* * *

He's taunting her. She can see it in the gleam of his glasses and the thin line that is his malicious smirk.

* * *

_(I thought about how the organization __you__ took over killed my best friend,)_ she answers him, and suddenly he's not so confident anymore and she can see real fear instead of self-assured taunting. She leaps off the ship because she's not interested in _breaking_ things and _defeating_ people, she needs to find the Shadow Triad _now-_

* * *

She doesn't remember the battle.

* * *

She remembers everything clearly up to that point. She landed painfully (but not too painfully since the Frigate was descending into the Giant Chasm anyway) and shot towards the cavern. She remembers the cave, one straight path with pools of water and ice forming mysterious puddle-lakes. She remembers watching as Ghetsis taps his cane on the ground, _one two three_ times, and the horrified realization of what he was actually going to do now that Colress was not calling the shots. And suddenly _n&touko_ are there with _reshiram&zekrom,_ and _mindcontrolledkyurem_ can't fuse with both of them and they are deadlocked in an endless struggle to regain control of their minds—there is a tripled roar, screaming pain and fury and trapped and _(she can't watch) _so she rushes forward and somehow manages to calm Kyurem down.

* * *

(She definitely remembers _that_ battle. All five of her Pokémon with their strongest attacks were barely enough to take down the massive Ice-and-Dragon-type.)

* * *

But the battle she can't remember is the most important one. She remembers standing in the whirlwind that is the aftermath (_kyurem_ retreating, _reshiram&zekrom_ turning back into _stones?_ _n&touko_ confronting each other about what happened_twoyearsago_) and seeing Ghetsis. She remembers yelling at him, feeling rather cynical _(hey multicolored snuggie!)_ and N looks mildly amused _(that's a new one)_ and Ghetsis turns around, shocked _(what did you say?)_ and then she sees the Shadow Triad materialize in front of him, and the world seems to tint a strange shade of red and fade away.

* * *

Her head hurts too much to explain to anyone, so she falls asleep for a day (or four) and wakes up in Humilau City Hospital and sees Hugh.

* * *

_(Where did you go?)_ she whispers from her hospital bed.

_(I didn't go anywhere,) _he replies._ (You just couldn't see me.)_

And with sudden clarity, she realizes that she has been seeing everything in lovely shades of all the colors of the rainbow instead of just _black&white_ ever since the battle that she can't remember, and she smiles for the first time in a long time.

* * *

_(It was you?)_ she asks him curiously, hugging a pillow to her chest as she sits up.

_(Technically, you fought the battle,)_ he answers, a mischievous sparkle lighting up his eyes._ (Except for the fact that you probably don't remember anything.)_

_(Just a lot of red,)_ she admits.

_(Rage,)_ mumbles the blunette, looking rather embarrassed.

She sighs. _(You really haven't changed, have you?)_

_(I'm seventeen. That counts for something, right?)_ he replies with a smirk, and she rolls her eyes and hugs him (he feels pretty solid and warm to her, which is confusing because isn't he a ghost or something?) and with a shock, she realizes that she is seventeen too.

He grins at her surprise. _(Happy birthday, Rosa.)_

And then he disappears, and five seconds later roughly half of Unova rushes into her room: her parents and his parents and haru and _nate&nancy_ who she hasn't seen in five years and _bianca&touya_ and _n&touko_ and professor juniper and marlon and some of his gym trainers and a few other gym leaders and a reporter named christoph, and she wonders if all of her important birthdays will be spent in a hospital.

* * *

When everyone is gone, she falls asleep again.

* * *

She wakes up at exactly 1:38am (according to the clock on the hospital room nightstand) and sees him again, and she tries to say something but it comes out as a sob. And that's how she spends the rest of the night, crying into the black long-sleeve shirt of her best friend _(who is a ghost but not really because he isn't see-through or insubstantial)_ and letting herself cry the tears she hasn't let out since she was twelve, because he can't come back ever again.

* * *

She tries to give him back his jacket. He tells her _(keep it, it looks better on you anyway)_ and then he vanishes, and she whispers _I love you_ into the room that is slowly starting to lighten with all the colors of the sunrise.

* * *

She is still JustRosa and not _hugh&rosa_, but that's okay.

* * *

because someday, they will meet again.

* * *

fin


End file.
